Northeast Harbor shop owner ordered to pay bank $20,000

ELLSWORTH, Maine — A Northeast Harbor woman facing a charge in Connecticut of larceny in the first degree has been ordered by a judge to pay $20,000 to a local bank.

Bar Harbor Bank & Trust has been trying to recover $23,415 from Dianna Brochendorff since 2006, according to documents on file in Ellsworth District Court. On Aug. 2, at the end of a financial disclosure hearing in district court, Brochendorff was ordered to pay the bank $20,000 within two weeks of the hearing. Payment within that time will satisfy the claim in full, documents indicated.

Brochendorff, 63, owes the money to the bank as a result of a credit transaction, an attorney representing the bank has said.

A Mount Desert electrical contractor also has been trying to get money out of Brochendorff, according to court documents. MCM Electric claims it was owed $1,170.89 for two days of work it did for Brochendorff last September, but indicated in court documents that five subsequent attempts to contact Brochendorff about paying the bill were unsuccessful.

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A handwritten note in the case file indicates Brochendorff paid the contractor $600 on May 13. The contractor’s small claims case was dismissed on Aug. 2, according to court documents.

Brochendorff is accused of stealing nearly $200,000 worth of designer clothing and antiques from a former friend in Connecticut. According to police, the friend stored the items in 2000 at Brochendorff’s home at the time in Salisbury, Conn., but Brochendorff did not return the items when asked to do so.

This past February, police recovered some of the missing items at a consignment shop Brochendorff ran in Somesville and at her Northeast Harbor apartment. Sales receipts for some of the allegedly stolen items also were found at the Somesville shop, police have said.

Brochendorff, who denies stealing the items, now runs a similar shop on Main Street in Northeast Harbor called The Maine Coast Exchange.